Zariyah Gunn
Zariyah Gunn is one of the main characters in Synodic Reboot. She has a fascination with the paranormal, and dedicates a lot of her focus to exploring such matters. She has medium-length white hair with dark blue dye that has a notable downward curve with a lock reaching down to the side. Her symbol resembles an exclamation mark with brackets reaching in around a smaller, central dot, and she starts off wearing a large overcoat and a skirt. She was the first adlet introduced, but despite this was not the first to enter the Medium. Biography Background As a Sverb player, she has most likely originally arrived on Nobriel via meteor, but the exact circumstances of her arrival are currently unknown. She grew up with her brother Kristan, only recently moving out at some point before the comic begins. She once went on a road trip with her friend Alethea to find and retrieve the timeline tracker left for her by her mother, accompanied by Kristan and another friend at the time, exploitedImpasse. At some point since then, her and EI have become enemies through as of yet unknown means. Throughout her life she has hunted for paranormal artifacts, only being met with minimal success as very few of them are shown to actually do anything out of the ordinary, and the few that do tend to only have very minor effects. However, one paranormal entity she has encountered far outshone the rest - the Vengeful Spirit, which has persisted to haunt her, possibly as a result of her taking its gravestone (though it has not left her alone when she tried to give it back or return it to its original site). Thankfully, the runic seals she has can successfully prevent the spirit from entering the rooms it is posted on the door of, including her bedroom. Sverb Zariyah is the first server player of the session, connecting to Kristan's house where she placed the first entry mechanisms and encouraged him to play around to discover how they work, fascinated by what this reality-altering game may be hiding. However, upon noticing the meteor just before his entry and after realizing he was transported to another dimension immediately afterward, her attitude towards the game has shifted; she now realizes it as a threat and prioritizes entering as quick as possible to keep Kristan safe. Before her entry, however, she travels to a nearby set of ruins to retrieve a stash of talismans capable of temporarily banishing the spirit, not wanting to risk its interference screwing anything up in the process. Along the way she has a conversation with Alethea, in which Alethea tells Zariyah she knows someone who could make for a good server player, as she was still without one. Much to her dismay, this person ends up being exploitedImpasse. Working with EI, Zariyah had an intense fight with the spirit as she went through the process of entering the Medium, involving having her ear violently pierced by the totem lathe, ultimately entering the game just before Cheral crashed into her house. In the last moments of her entry, Zariyah instinctively utilized some sort of power to assist in activating the cruxite artifact, which she does not remember doing afterwards. During entry, she prototyped her sprite with a mask artifact that has the ability to activate machinery. Upon her arrival to LOGAM, Zariyah had immediately entered a phonecall with Kristan after deducting that Masksprite was incapable of speech, while EI left to take care of his own entry. During the conversation, Zariyah comforted Kristan on his emotional issues and the two deducted that they were on separate planets in the Medium, but were determined to find a way to get to each other. After the phonecall, Zariyah spent a bit of time cleaning up her ear situation and trying to further prototype Masksprite to no avail. She has a brief conversation with twinjetXanthic, where she sends her photos of murals she took while still on Nobriel and tells her about Sverb, while TJ inspires her to be more relaxed and true to herself. Upon setting out to explore the planet for a way to get to Kristan, Zariyah also discovered that she had lost her gravestone on Nobriel. After navigating around some of the planet's various lethal traps, Masksprite shifts into Quintinsprite, revealing that the Vengeful Spirit had gotten into the kernel since entry and just had to reform, but as a sprite he now has restored awareness and is capable of conversation, seemingly losing his violent tendencies. The two argued a bit, both wary of one another, and Zariyah ended up contacting Rennard to see about possibly retrieving the gravestone. Personality and Traits Zariyah's clearest interest is her fascination with the paranormal, although it's more of a hobby than a downright obsession. However, she still focuses on it a bit more than is ordinary, sometimes pestering her friends in hope of finding something out of reality's ordinary rules. This fascination extends beyond literal paranormal objects and entities too; though she much prefers the real deal, she still enjoys fictional works centered around the subject, such as stories, movies, or video games. Finding the origins of false rumors via folklore is also a fun concept to her. She is a bit of a snarky jokester, poking fun at her friends with fun banter under the assumption they can always take it, even though she sometimes can border on the annoying side. Her demeanor is notably carefree and lazy to an extent, even towards things that others might consider larger threats, such as the Vengeful Spirit. Despite this, she still has her limits as to when things should be appropriately treated as serious threats and will act more down to earth when necessary. She also seems to have a liking for junk food and has eating habits some might consider odd - refusing to set up an actual dining room and keeping chips under her bed, as examples, though these can be chalked up to the presence of the spirit hindering casual use of a good portion of the house. Abilities Zariyah, despite her laziness, is quite physically strong, able to lift and swing her weaponized gravestone without much difficulty. She seems to be quite experienced, hence her carefree nature and likely having explored various ruins to acquire her artifacts. As a player of Sverb, it can also be assumed that she has some sort of ability relating to her title as the Thief of Dusk. During her entry, she instinctively activated some sort of power in which shadowy strands formed around her cruxite artifact to lock it into place so she could activate it, also possibly using this shadow to strengthen her hit. It's possible this is a manifestation of the Dusk aspect, but she does not recall doing so. Zariyah also has a dreamself on Derse, but it has yet to awaken. Relationships Kristan Gunn Zariyah and Kristan have a close sibling relationship, often bouncing off of each other with jokes and banter while still knowing when to be serious and help each other out. Zariyah is Kristan's server player, and is dedicated to finding a way across the Medium's planets to protect him. Quintin Trey Zariyah always resented Quintin while he was in his Vengeful Spirit form, but she viewed him as more of a passive nuisance than an actual threat, despite its hostility and physical capability. Upon his transformation into a sprite and resulting increase of coherence and decrease of hostility, Zariyah is still wary of him, but tentatively trusting. The two bicker with one another quite a bit. Alethea Luke Zariyah and Alethea are close friends who look out for each others' well being. Alethea has been known to occasionally help Zariyah out with her vague knowledge of the future. exploitedImpasse Although once apparently friends, Zariyah and EI now share an antagonistic sort of rivalry. EI enjoys poking fun at and annoying Zariyah for the fun of it; as a result, Zariyah can hardly stand speaking to him, but is willing to tolerate having him as a server player with no other immediate options available. Mirgonsprite Although initially wary and distrusting of Mirgon due to their surprising attitude towards Kristan's necessary activities within Sverb, Zariyah has come to see them as more of a viable acquaintance after working with them to build Kristan's house up to the First Gate as he slept. Predating Mirgon's iteration as a sprite, Zariyah has viewed the dragon plush as an inanimate/imaginary friend throughout her and Kristan's childhood. Rennard Rush Zariyah and Rennard are friends, but due to Zariyah's fascination with anything that may be paranormal and Rennard's unusual nightmares, there tends to be a bit of tension between them as Zariyah sometimes pushes the sore subject without seeming to get the hint to stop. TJ While retrieving the talismans from the ruins, Zariyah mused upon the mysterious murals on the walls, remarking that TJ would appreciate seeing them and decided to snap pictures for her sake. She later sends the images to her, during the conversation, TJ helps reassure Zariyah to stay true to herself and Zariyah tells TJ about Sverb and advises her to be careful in the meantime. Trivia * Zariyah is so far the only character to have a naming gag, as names opt to be automatically entered due to the impossibility of just happening to guess the correct name. * Her appearance was slightly retconned at one point in the comic's production, with her sprite being updated in existing panels, done to increase the quality of art and to give her a more simplified color scheme. Previously, her skirt was red and her coat had several red tassels on it, and her hair's downward curve was less apparent. Category:Adlet Category:Characters